5 Comments

Gina Lopez I believe is an eye-opener. She is foremost encouraging responsible mining but there are some mining people who were and who are hard-headed still mining irresponsibly thus giving them the extreme penalties. Just like the EJKs in drugs cases – users and pushers continue to proliferate despite the warnings and the anti-drug campaigns, only death can end their misery and hopelessness.

I’m glad that the CA rejected her appointment. We need to have a DENR secretary who will encourage responsible mining, an important industry in our country. What’s the use of our vast mineral resources if we’re not allowed to mine it? Mining laws should be strictly enforced and penalties increased for its violation. We need a secretary who is both competent and incorruptible and does not have conflict of interest as was the case with Gina Lopez.

Indeed you are correct when you said that our vast mineral resources should be mined responsibly. Is this really being done by the mining companies? The answer is no! I can categorically made that statement because I was once a part of the mining industry being a licensed Mining Engineer itself. Legitimate or illegal mining companies dump their waste water in the rivers and contaminated the water reservoir. Yes, they have tailing dams but in every heavy downpour of rains, they released their contaminated water in order to prevent their dam from bursting. Also check those mining areas that were already closed, did they rehabilitate it. NO! Everything here is about man’s greed for money without considering the future of the next generation. Wake up everybody!

“When my father started talking about strip mining in the Appalachia back in the ’60s, I remember a conversation I had with him where he said, you know, this is the richest state in the country if you look at the resources and the land, but the poorest people after the state of Mississippi: the 49th poorest people in the country.”
Robert Kennedy, Jr.

“The story of mountaintop mining – why it happens, and what its consequences are – is still new to most Americans. They have no idea that their country’s physical legacy – the purple mountain majesties that are America – is being destroyed at the rate of several ridgetops a week, by three million pounds of explosives every day.“
Michael Shnayerson